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News: Beer consumption at historic low in Australia

What’s going on, Australia? The country that gave the world Foster’s (thanks a lot for that, by the way) is drinking less beer than at any time in the last 69 years.

Australians drank on average 4.04 litres of beer per person during the 2013-14 financial year – the lowest rate since the end of World War II, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). Australians drank nearly twice as much beer in the 1970s.

It continues a worrying trend that saw beer consumption in Australia fall from 4.45 litres per person to 4.23 during the 2012-13 financial year. At the same time, wine consumption has flattened out.

Although beer consumption has dropped, it holds a healthy 41% share of the Australian alcoholic beverage sector – more than wine (37%), spirits (13%), ready-to-drink alcoholic beverages (7%) and cider (2%).

Australian beer commentator Matt Kirkegaard told Good Food: “[Australian beer drinkers] are taking a ‘less is more’ approach. They’d rather have one or two beers that they really enjoy than a six-pack that is really only giving them some refreshment and a hangover.”

There’s nothing wrong with that, then. At Best Beer HQ we’re advocates of responsible drinking, and enjoying good-quality beers over the bland and tasteless ones that big breweries love to tip down our throats. Metaphorically, of course.

The news comes as Canadian media report a similar trend of declining beer. Beer sales have dropped there by 0.1% last year, while wine and liquor sales increased by 4.9% and 2.9% respectively.